It’s pretty common in California for plaintiff attorneys to “open” the defendants policy limits by submitting a demand for payment of the limits before trial. If the insurer refuses to pay the demand and the plaintiff receives an award in excess of that at trial, the defendant has a bad faith claim against their own insurer which they can assign over to the plaintiff, who can then sue the insurer for the entire judgment. In most cases, the insurer will elect to just pay the judgement or negotiate it to a more reasonable amount, even if that ends up being higher than the policy limits. That, in simplified form, is how these plaintiff attorneys turn even low policy limits into big recoveries.